Taiwan Ganbei, Chinatown

Taiwan ganbei is the first Taiwanese restaurant that I've ever been to. It is located in the heart of Chinatown just next to Meetfresh. Taiwanese cuisine usually will not be my choice for my meals but this time a friend recommend it to me :)

To start with we ordered the spicy beef brisket. The beef was so tender and juicy and the sauce covering it was packed of flavour! The price for the portion are cheap as well.

Spicy beef brisket $5.50

 The four of us ordered a combo which comes with a meat dish and a bowl of rice topped with minced pork and boiled egg. Loveeeed the boiled egg!

So Combo no.1 is the Three cup chicken. The name comes from the three main ingredients used to cook this dish which are sesame oil, soy sauce and chinese rice wine. The chicken was juicy and the sauce was delectably good.

Combo with rice $15.50

Combo no.2 that we ordered was deep fried chicken with basil. The chicken was cooked to perfection and it has a nice chinese spice note coming from the batter.

Deep fried chicken with basil combo $14.50

 And the last combo that we ordered was the deep fried pork chop. It has the same batter as the chicken but the pork chop was drizzled with this chinese style teriyaki sauce which complemented the pork really well!

Deep fried Pork chop Combo $15.50

It surprises me that I actually don't mind Taiwanese cuisine at all. But this restaurant has yet convinced me to come back :)

Naruone, Sydney

A new Korean restaurant open in Pitt st, Sydney. It is located besides the Korean supermarket and you have to go down the stairs to enter this restaurant.
They displayed their menu on a glass wall along the street just above the restaurant and you can't just miss this place :)

So we decided to give this place a try as their specialty is their fried chicken and we are still in our journey to find out if there's any other contender for Arisun's chicken :)

More banchan pleasee... These amounts for 4 of us is too little hehe,, Me and my brother are kimchi lovers! 

Banchan

 Here comes the chickennnn :) So crispy and tenderrr...!! I must say that this chicken is a must to buy when you visit this restaurant. Well it has different yuminess to the Arisun's chicken but this chicken is more authentic korean in my opinion while Arisun's is more tro chinese-korean chicken ^^

Fried Chicken with Spring Onion ($30)

 I loveee korean soup whichever kind it is. But this one in Naruone, I think there is a herb in that soup that makes it taste a bit soapy to me, but my boyfriend loves the soup so much, I wonder how different palates that we have.. Most of the times we always have different opinion on food :p But apart from the soapy note, the meat is so tender that it falls of the bone and to have it on a cold night, yuuuuummmm...!!

Spicy pork rib stew ($14)

Bossammm (a thinly sliced pork belly which is boiled with Ginger and Onions)!! I first came across the existence of Bossam is from a Korean Variety Show. Before, I would never ever eat pork belly that is not crispy or deep fried. I don't really like the fatty part if it is soft and chewy like that. But when you wrap the pork in lettuce and kimchi with some gochujang and chopped green chilli, my GOD its Heaven.. The texture complement each other and they are justt.... PERFECT.

So this concludes my eating journey in Naruone.. Will definitely come back to try other dishes !!^^

Second Visit to Naruone
31st March 2014

Another gathering with my Subway friends but this time, its not chinese restaurant anymore.. Its korean !!^^ And there will be 8 of us so I was hyped to go cause that means that we  will be ordering many new dishes to be added to my blog :)

As usual, we always have to order the fried chicken... And this time we also ordered 4 new dishes!
First is the Kimchi Pancake. I usually get Seafood pancake / Haemul pajeon but to my surprise, the kimchi pancake is so much yummier than seafood pancake! And they use chives here instead of spring onionss.. Happy ~~ The pancake is crispy but still has a good chewy bite to it. The pancake sauce compliments that pancake nicely.

$15

Next my friend suggested the steam eggs. The eggs is so smooth and silky and the sauce for me taste like okonomiyaki japanese sauce :) It was really good to be eaten with hot ice ^^

$12

The next dish is Bulgogi. I didn't expect a lot from Bulgogi cause it was a pretty mainstream korean dish. But it surprised me that the bulgogi is well marinated and very flavoursome. They have proved me wrong. Bulgogi in Naruone now is my second favourite dish after the fried chicken. It has a good balance of sweetness and was served in a generous portion too.

$38

Lastly, we ordered the potato and pork bone soup. It does not take long before everyone slurped the soup and munching off those meat from the bones :) It was soo good!

Medium $45

Another enjoyable night in Naruone!!

Sushi Tengoku, Kensington

Sunday, 17th Feb 2013

I only have been to this place once when I was still in my first year of Uni which was in 2008. My indo friend introduce me to this place. But looking at the price for a portion of california roll of $14, I have never come back since then ;P Don't get me wrong though, the taste is so good and the sushi is enormous. Its just that its too pricey for student like me before :p

Until one of my brother's friend who know that owner really well that he always got a deal from the owner.
Every last Sunday of the month, the owner will allow a $20 buffet per person for a minimum of 10 people. Finding 10 people to have a sushi buffet in Tengoku for that price is so easy! So tonight I am one of the lucky ones :) The eating order is that we just have to sit and wait for the food to come. We can't order anything but we only just have to eat whatever the owner gave out. But believe it me, it was a never ending food coming out! Until we have to take away some!!

Brace yourself for the photos below! Dont be jealous ;P

California roll

Takoyaki

Agedashi Tofu

Gyoza

Creamy baked scallop and fish! yummy!

Baked scallop and Fish

This was one of my favourite! but beware though, it is litterally a volcano! the inside of this sushi is really hot! hot not spicy :)

Volcano Roll

Karage Chicken

Chicken Udon

Mixed salad (Avocado, crabstick, cucumber, eggs and tomato

I am a tamago lover and I must say, Tengoku has the BEST BEST TAMAGO ever! I can never get bored of eating this!!!

Salmon Aburi

Another one of my favourite dish here is the Chirashi sushi.. A combination of salmon, eggs, veggies on rice, top with Japanse mayo and blow torched! yuuum!!

Chirashi Sushi

Unfortunately, the owner does not offer the $20 buffet anymore so I guess I have to come back as the sushis here are amazing! Especially the volcano, chirashi and tamago!!

Highly Recommended!

Chilli garden, Hurstville

Chilli Garden Second Visit...

Another catch up with my Subway Friends.. I dont know why we always meet up here ;P Its just a coincidence I guess.. So this time we ordered something different while still ordering the Fish in chilli oil and the beef tripes :)

We ordered this cold dish as our starter.. Well, my firends ordered it, it was quite a strange to me to me at first as the usually eat our noodle warm/hot. But surprisingly, I quite like it.. The noodle has a good chewiness but yeah it was bit oily :)

Cold Dishes - Jelly noodle in scezhuan oil

 The Mapo Tofu is cooked with duck egg, so the sauce is creamy and looked spicy but really there's nothing spicy from that dish.. The tofu is silken and smooth and the peas still got a good crunch to it :)

The below dish is one of my favourite of the night, so the concept it similar to Master Bowl in Chinatown, where you pick a minimum of 5 ingredients and they will stir fry it for you :)

My friend chose lamb, beef intestines, tofu, cauliflower, potato, mushrooms and Potato noodle :)

We ended up with $25/pp and there were 6 of us.. And we still manage to Da Bao / Takeaway a container full of foods :) What another great night in this restaurant . 

Good Food. Good Company..

Chilli Garden 1st Visit

I decided to have a catch up with my Subway friends as it has been long since I met them.. So I give them a call and asked them if we could catch up over dinner anytime soon. Previous meeting, we had dinner in Ayam Goreng 99 where I told them that this place serve the best Indonesian Fried Chicken. But it has failed to impress my Chinese Friends. So this time, I told them to pick the place.

Because all of us really love spicy food, he invited us to try Chilli Garden Restaurant. As the name denotes, the food here must be spicy :) I am so excited and can't wait to try it out. 

The waiter in the restaurant barely speaks English and my friend is a regular there so I leave it to them whatever they want to order.. Ill just eat and pay ^^

For starter, we had the Beef tongue and tripe in Chilli Oil (Cold Dish). Slices of beef parts simmered in Chilli oil with coriander, spring onions, peanuts and sprinkles of sesame seeds. Not to forget szechuan pepper! This herb makes your tongue numb! It was delicious though.. My bf favourite for sure..

Beef slice, tongue and tripe in Chilli Oil $9.80

 This was similar dish to the one on top but it is sliced chicken :)

Braised Dongpo Pork Hock with Brown sauce $26.80

 My favourite Dish of the nightt.... Fish fillet with scezhuan chilli! The fish is so tender, cooked perfectly. Underneath the pepper, there is also Korean bean sprout which has bigger head the regular beansprout! Caution though this dish is so numbing you lips!

Fish fillet in scezhuan chilli oil $33

 A cold noodle dish which I found weird when tasting it first. But after going back for seconds, it taste alright. I guess my tastebuds get used to it ^^ It's not my bf favourite dish though.. It looks spicy but its actually not. I regarded this as "chinese noodle salad" with the sprouts, sliced beef and as it is cold :p

Scezhuan Cold Noodle $16.80

 This dish how it works is similar to Master Bowl restaurant in Chinatown where you can choose the ingredients to be stir fried with the homemade special sauce.. My friend picked lotus beetroot, potato, chewy jelly noodle, chicken, tofu and cauliflower :)

Another favourite dish of mine and my bf... The deep fried chicken is crunchy and I can really taste the garlicky note on the chicken and when I eat the chicken together with the dried chilli, my god I can taste the spiciness of the dish! which is what I'm looking for :)

Deep fried chicken dices with dry scezhuan chilli $19.80

This Dinner was also to welcome my friend's twins to his Sydney trip for the first time ^^ 

What a fun night we hadd :)

Overall dining experience... Great Food, Great place, Great Price, Easy to find parking. Its just the waiter.. Hardly understand me speaking T.T
Highly Recommended! Will definitely be back!!

Ippudo, Sydney Westfield

I was walking around in the city on Saturday night and went to westfield for dinner. I came across this new ramen restaurant called Ippudo and the queue at 6:30PM was not a joke! I googled it straight away, and apparently there were a lot of infomation about this ramen place that it is very well known in Japan and a couple of poeple have write their review on this place.

Ippudo Originated in Japan, they hand made their noodle and their put a lot of effort in producing the top notch pork broth that they serve there. They also introduced me to the word "Zuzutto" which is the way of eating ramen japanese style. In short word, we have to slurp the noodle when we ate them till it makes the sound to maximize the enjoyment of eating ramen :P

It was impossible for me to queue that night so I decided to come back on Sunday. I ask a couple of my friends along with my bf to try that place out. As my bf is very fond of anything Japanese-related..
We were greeted enthusiastically by the waiter and also when we left :P

For starter, we ordered the famous pork bun. The Bun is so delicate and soft, the Pork is flavoursome complemented by the crunchy lettuce and japanese mayo. one is never enough for me..!!

Pork Bun 4.50

Ippudo Gyoza (Hakata style) 6.00

 My dish was Akamaru Shinaji which is tonkotsu broth incorporated with miso paste and garlic oil. Accompanied by mushrooms and pork belly .. Taste wise, I don't really get the depth of the flavour as Gumshara ramen got.. Im not complaining though, its just that my expectation has been put up really high :p

Or maybe this is what authentic japanese ramen taste like, I'll never know till I travel there someday. . .

Akamaru Shinaji $16

This is what my bf got.. Shiromaru motoaji. It is similar to what i got but it was more to a tradition hakata style ramen without the miso paste and the garlic oil :)

Shiromaru Motoaji $15

I might come back again for the pork bun.. Not too sure for the ramen cause I prefer ramen with more flavour depth ;P Anyone agree? hehe..